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Blockchain for Europe Secretary General on the state of global cryptocurrency regulation | video
Joining us now is Blockchain General Secretary for Europe Robert Koch. Roberto. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Okay, Robert, we were just taking a look at our little consent ad and we saw Lefty, I don’t know if he was a Llama or an Alpaca. I think, I think he was a L Lefty the llama. OK. From last year, one of my highlights. And do you remember Lefty? No, the llama. Do you remember the llama? Actually, it’s cool because you know, we were there and my deputy is a huge llama fan and he has a tattoo on his arm because it’s his totem animal and he was so excited. And I was like, yeah, okay, let’s do the Instagram story and get it over with and it was great. People loved it and you should have more animals here. Right. I agree. We should have more animals here. Maybe we’ll find a little puppy pen or something we can have consensually. I feel like it would really help the people he hangs out with. We can have everything come, come for the in-depth conversation. Stay for the cute and cuddly animals. Okay, we’ll start talking about regulation in a second. But I have to understand your thoughts. You’ve been to consensus before. How do you feel? We’re actually just kicking off 2024. Great. I mean, my first consent was still in New York. So it was a little bit of a different experience. It was more, I don’t want to say old school, but New York is, you know, a little different than Austin. And since then, you could really see that the consensus has always moved with the market. So, you know, last year was a little less enthusiastic and the year before that was great. I think this year is going to be amazing. Again, there’s a lot of positive atmosphere, a lot of things are happening, and adoption and regulation are emerging. Uh you know, so there will be legal certainty and companies will be happy. I think at least in Europe, I think in the United States, you’ve also made some progress now, you know, everything’s fine. No, it’s still a very good step forward, you know, the regulatory framework on crypto asset marketing will come into force this year. What do you expect? What do you see from companies and businesses that are trying to prepare for this? Expectations range from very high to disastrous. Uh There’s a wide range from this depending on what angle you take, right? I mean, the regulation itself generates a lot of legal certainty for the market. So it’s a real opportunity to set up shop in Europe, set up a business and be sure that what you do is legally expert and allows you to grow. Right? This is the key element. On the other hand, there is always the question of how regulators will implement it. And you know, the European Union has 27 member states and not all countries are equally expert when it comes to cryptocurrencies. I mean, it’s the same as in the US, right? I mean, there’s a difference between, but, I don’t want to name and shame a lot of states, but there are differences in the United States and the same is true in Europe. And if you’re local to a place where the regulators are a little more conservative, it might be a little more difficult to, you know, get things going. But I think overall most companies will establish themselves in a handful of countries and once Mica is up and running, right? So the stablecoins will, in part, come into effect at the end of June and the rest at the end of the year and so you will have some rules that are not perfect, but I think it’s a great starting point, right? I mean, no regulation has ever been perfect. But you have to start somewhere and we, as a player in the industry, will continue to work to improve it and it all depends on, you know, the innovators in the industry. And that’s why we’re also here to talk to them and see what they’re interested in, what they’re looking for, why it’s important. And then, hopefully, go back to Europe and tell our politicians to adapt over time. So, based on these adjustments, the European elections will take place in just over a week. Um, there are expectations that, you know, both people who get re-elected and new officials who get elected may try to change or update. Uh you know, the 27 member framework, you know, before the individual nations do it or just what do you expect from the elections? I mean, I love this question because I have a very strong view on it. There are a lot of changes coming and the last parliament was more centre-left oriented, which is traditionally more focused on social issues, on the consumer protection climate, which is not a bad thing, right? But when it comes to innovation and business, they always vary greatly on the cautious side. So first there is consumer protection and then we see if there is room for innovation. Parliament will move a little to the right, which on some issues is not that great, to be honest. But when it comes to business, fintech and cryptocurrencies, I think it will be good because there is more open-mindedness and more young parliamentarians will come who are already used to wallets, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and all these things. So the discussions will be different and hopefully better. So I think there’s really an opportunity for the industry to actually move this needle towards a more positive future. And an opportunity that I could be completely wrong about. Right. And they’re all electing old boys and they want all the central banks and um and we’ve all fucked up, but, you know, I’m an optimist. Oh yeah, we’ll have to, we’ll have to wait and see, talk to me about getting everyone to work together on the writing, the transition and now the implementation of Mica. It seems so, it would have been a challenging undertaking. Oh Jesus, yes, we had over 200 meetings with politicians in those two years. And I remember one day when we got the draft Bitcoin ban in parliament and I was at the Dubai Expo on Saturday night and they asked me, hey, what do you think? I mean, it’s terrible. We have to get rid of it, which we finally did. But, you know, like I’m actually on vacation in the evening with my family and that’s not how you want to spend your time, to be honest, but, you know, we did it and I think we did a great job. The only thing that probably wasn’t, turned out not to be as good as it should have been like the ST, the stablecoins, simply because they all were, that big technology comes in and takes over the banking pie. And that’s why they’re very tough on stablecoins compared to a lot of other places, it doesn’t mean that this won’t change, especially because the digital euro is going to take some time and now there’s a gap and someone has to fill it. So maybe they turn a blind eye and say, okay, leave them, let them go until we have a digital euro or it’s just an unknown situation where, you know, Teta won’t be there in Europe because I’m not a compliant and some others may have disappeared too . And yes, the process was great because it was a collaborative effort and there was a lot of excitement in some parts of the parliament and the commission because they knew what could change, what it entails and what opportunities. But it’s been, it’s been a huge, uphill battle, with certain groups and certain mentalities and, because you know what, we don’t know, we’re afraid most of the time and we spend a lot of time taking away the Fear. And I think overall it went pretty well, but you know, some things we can’t control, right, like uh FTX uh Terra Lua. And luckily Terra Lua happened after Mia was adopted, otherwise it probably would have been different. And um yeah, so yeah, but it was emotional, I think, a great process and it was a great fight literally until the last minute. So when the trilogue ended, and the French ambassador said, like, thank you. That’s all. Uh A minute before I made some, some decisions about NFTS that no one knew about and it just became law, right. So it’s been, uh, quite a ride, as I’ve been saying all morning, we’re talking to other governments and regulators on the show this morning trying to get into the mind of what’s going on in different regions around the world, are you following the regulation in different parts of the world? Is there any particular region that you’re looking at that you think is doing things progressively? In short, in reality we follow all the regions to a greater or lesser extent. I mean, you always have to follow the US simply because when all this is globally, normally the US and the UC together discuss. And the irony is that, in most cases, what the United States does globally is in contradiction to what it does domestically. They basically force it on everyone else. Then people get pissed off and look at the United States and ask, guys, why don’t you implement any of this? Like, yeah, we thought it was a bad idea. It’s like yeah, we knew but we did it anyway. And um, we also look a lot at the Middle East, there’s some positive developments there and then obviously the big jurisdictions, right? The UK is still somewhat relevant to Switzerland, Japan, Singapore and even what the Chinese are doing, right? It’s more like monitoring. I mean, there’s not a lot of effort there, but Hong Kong, for example, is quite interesting. And the next piece that’s going to be particularly interesting to the rest of us is probably going to be what’s happening in Africa, right? Because they have a big problem with foreign currency there. So CBD C stablecoins, that stuff that’s highly toxic. I would also say you look at Nigeria, for example, but on the other hand, the adoption in those markets is just huge, right? And if you go to South America or Africa and it’s a great use case, right? Because in the West people always ask: what is the use case for cryptocurrencies? And because we have those payments and infrastructure and banking and all these things and then when you look at people who live overseas or especially in emerging markets and it’s just normal for them, right? It’s like everyone uses it under a certain age and I think it’s something that slowly moves into the mentality of Europeans and probably Americans too. Roberto, thank you very much. For joining our programming this morning. This was Blockchain General Secretary for Europe, Robert Kit.